


Koschei the Deathless

by icarus_chained



Category: Mythology - Fandom, Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Folklore, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Slavic mythology, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-20
Updated: 2012-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-04 00:32:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of where Koschei the Deathless kept his heart.</p>
<p>Set in 1933. Nikola and Nigel, discussing Nikola and Helen, by way of slavic mythology</p>
            </blockquote>





	Koschei the Deathless

**Author's Note:**

> Odd little thing. Slavic folklore is awesome, by the by

"You do know she doesn't love you?" Nigel asked him, once. Exasperated, pitying, worried. It was always Nigel who asked him these things. Only Nigel who knew enough, and dared enough, and cared little enough for the propriety of it. Only Nigel whose own heart wasn't broken enough, who could watch without the wrenching inside that tortured James. It was always Nigel who asked him these things.

"I know," Nikola agreed, quietly, a small smile curling his lips as he looked into his wine, and didn't look at the clock that chimed the hour, and the departure, yet again, of Helen's ship. A flying visit, there and gone again. As usual. As always. "I know that," he said, and drained off the glass.

"Then _why_?" Nigel's voice was soft, for all the edge of frustration beneath it. Nigel's voice was soft, and calm, and his blunt hand rested calmly and solidly over Nikola's more slender one. "For the love of God, man. Why would you do that to yourself?"

_Why do all of you do this?_ The unspoken rider to the question, and not unwarranted. One only had to look at the mess that was John and James and Helen to wonder at the insanity of it, to wonder why any man might wish to thrust his heart into that black tangle. And Nigel, alone of all of them who'd kept his head, and his heart, and his distance ... Nigel had a right to wonder, when it looked like the last of his friends might fall as well.

Nikola smiled at him softly, turning his hand under Nigel's to clasp, palm to palm, and squeeze his fingers gently. Trust and friendship, and that little more that lay between them, they two, skirting the edges of the grand tangle of the Five. He shook his head, wry and rueful and apologetic, because apology was owed. And more, explanation.

"Have you ever heard the story of Koschei the Deathless?" he asked at last, wine-warm and musing. Nigel blinked at him, nonplussed, and Nikola laughed, a little. Just faintly. "An old slavic tale. Have you heard of it?"

"... No," Nigel answered, with great deliberation and admirable patience. "That's usually more Helen's cup of tea than mine. I took a step outside, remember?"

Nikola smiled, rubbing a thumb across Nigel's worn knuckles. A step outside their world, yes. Hovering between Helen's mad, magnificent world, and the world beneath the veil, the world they'd all left behind to one degree or another. Nigel was the most liminal of them, in some ways. The most between. And, strangely enough, the most solid because of it.

"I remember," he said, soft and amused. They all made their safeties their own way, after all. And that, too, was what this little tale was about. "Bear with me, hmm? The story has a point."

"If you say so," Nigel huffed. "Never took you much for the folklore end of it, though."

Nikola laughed. "In Helen's world? Only common sense, no? Though besides. My mother memorised many of the old Serbian epics. It was only a short step from there to the folklore, the mythology. It may not have held the brunt of my interest, but I do remember some things."

Nigel blinked at him, looking faintly chastised. Which hadn't at all been Nikola's intent, and he reached lazily across to bring Nigel's hand to his lips, to smile around his knuckles. Nigel alone dared to ask him these things. Nikola did appreciate that.

"Anyway," he said, letting their hands fall back to the table, smiling distantly once more. "The story of Koschei the Deathless. It tells of a creature, a demon. An old man, wicked and skeletal, who could not be killed." He smiled faintly, a gleam of darkness in his eyes, a faint edge to his teeth. In 1933, an old man, unkillable, who should be tottering about his day. Nigel rolled his eyes at him, and Nikola grinned. "And do you know the secret to this creature's immortality?"

"Does it involve a needle?" Nigel asked him, drily, and Nikola laughed.

"Actually ..." he said, and smiled as Nigel's eyebrows shot up, grinned as wickedly as any slavic boogeyman. "But in all seriousness. In the story, Koschei's immortality really is found in a needle." He held up a hand, gestured the size of the thing between his fingers. The slim line of a non-existent sliver of metal. "He hid his soul in it, you see. His heart. Stowed it away inside a needle, and the needle inside an egg, and the egg inside a duck, inside a hare ... On up to a chest of gold, hidden in a tree, on an island that could vanish between one breath and the next, where the winds lived, that could not be found without their leave."

"So ... fairly secure, then?" Nigel commented, with a crooked smile of his own. A thief's judgement. Nikola grinned.

"He thought so," he said, mildly, with a smile to share a little joke. "Perhaps they didn't have quite the same class of thieves in those days. But then, that's rather my point."

"Oh?" And oh, Nigel did know how to humour him, didn't he? Did know how to prompt him along, amused and forebearant, and wait for Nikola to eventually meander around to a point. Long practice, that was. Putting up with all of them on their many and varied wild tangents. "Do go on, Nikola." Rich amusement, and Nikola pinched the pad of his thumb in warning, and smiled.

"Koschei could not be killed so long as his soul was safe. His body could be destroyed as many times as his enemies wished, burned and beaten and hacked to pieces ... and so long as his heart was not touched, he would endure. So long as his heart was safe, he would not fall." 

His voice softened, there. Quieted, memories swarming up, colouring his voice far more than he might have wished, and Nigel squeezed his hand lightly. Met his eyes as he raised his head, steady and gentle, knowing. Nigel knew so many things. The Invisible Man had seen a lot, where no-one else could.

"But," Nikola went on, after a moment. "But," he said, "Koschei's soul was still vulnerable. Difficult to find, yes, but once someone had, once they had found the island, and opened the chest, and killed the animals, and finally took hold of the egg that held the needle ... then Koschei was in their power. They could tighten their hand, and he would beg. Jerk the egg about, and he would stagger helplessly. Use him as they pleased, with this hold upon his heart, and then ... Then, should they choose to shatter the egg, should they choose to break it and the needle ... he would die. Koschei the Deathless would be killed."

Nikola paused, vaguely conscious that his hold on Nigel's hand had tightened, that he must be bruising flesh far more fragile than a vampire's hand. Than a deathless hand. He breathed for a moment, steadied himself, and loosened his grip with a grimace of apology. Nigel, for his part, carefully pulled his hand free. Flexed it, gently, working blood back into pale fingers, then reached out again to rest it gently back atop Nikola's hand. An equal and opposite trust.

"So," Nikola said, quietly. "Not so secure after all. To place your soul in something so fragile. To give your heart to something so breakable. Not wise at all, I think. Don't you agree?"

"Mmm," Nigel nodded, noncommittally. There was a wealth of patience in his eyes, looking over at Nikola. A wealth of understanding.

"Better, then," Nikola said softly. "Better to place your heart in something that can't be broken itself. Better to place your soul in something that might outlast even yourself. Not a needle, nor an egg, nor a chest on some distant island. But ... But in a person. In someone ... indomitable. Someone immortal. Someone God himself could not knock down." He smiled, a dark little curl of his lips, wry and achingly self-aware, self-amused, softly bitter. "What better place to keep heart and soul, than in a woman who will never fall? Even if she doesn't know it. Perhaps ... perhaps even especially if she doesn't know it. Is that not the safest possible place?"

There was silence, for a moment. A long silence, while Nigel looked at him, looked at a deathless man, with eyes that saw so much more than was ever seen of them. Nikola looked away, looked down into his glass, at the swirl of liquid and the flow of secrets, of truths, in wine-dark depths. Nigel watched him in silence, and Nikola did not meet his eyes.

"But then," Nigel said softly, at last. Vastly, achingly gentle. "But then, what if that woman were careless? What if, not knowing what she held, she threw it about? Like the egg, making Koschei stagger after it. What if she were careless, and used him without knowing?"

And Nikola looked up at him, and the humour in his eyes was bright and genuine, and the smile on his lips real, for all it was rueful. Nikola looked up at him, and smiled, and said: "Is that not fair price, for immortality?"

A soul for a needle, a heart for a life. The harsh tightening of unknowing fingers, in payment for a will that would not falter, no matter what blows the body might suffer. In truth, for immortality, for the deathless ... was it not a fair price?

At the very least, he must hope so. At the very least, he must try. For his heart was stowed now, resting nested in its hidden and deathless prison, and naught now could gain it back. And no power in all the world, not monsters, not demons, not vampires, no matter how powerful, how wicked, how deathless, could take from Helen Magnus what she had been given.

"You poor, sorry bastard," Nigel said, quietly and with a shake of his head, and Nikola smiled at him, and held his hand, and rested his cheek atop scarred knuckles. "You poor bastard," Nigel said, and patted Koschei gently on the cheek.


End file.
